Film actress and Emmy Award winner Polly Bergen has passed away at the age of 84 in her Connecticut home. 

According to her agent, Judy Katz, the performer died from natural causes. The actress has been suffering from emphysema and circulatory problems due to her 50-year love for cigarettes.

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Despite her condition, Bergen worked well into her 80s, portraying the mother of Felicity Huffman's character of the TV series, "Desperate Housewives" and playing the mistress of Tony Soprano's father on "The Sopranos".

The outspoken actress first gained recognition by being a nightclub singer, quiz-show panelist and a cosmetics entrepreneur.

Although the actress got into many things, it wasn't until her first film, "At War With the Army" with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, did the Los Angeles Times writer Philip K. Sheuer say that the newcomer might just make her mark in showbusiness. The year was 1951.

"Miss Bergen looks like a nice person, and her voice is pretty good, but she doesn't know how to face a camera. Give her time. She's new," Sheuer.

And he was right.

Seven years after her first movie, Bergen won the Emmy for Best Actress for her portrayal of Helen Morgan, a troubled singer of the 1920s for the flick, "Playhouse 90".

Her star endured another six decades as the actress appeared in memorable movies such as the 1962 thriller "Cape Fear", where she starred opposited Gregory Peck and Rober Mitchum. She also starred in 1983's "The Winds of War" and 1988's "War and Remembrance".

Huffman shared, remembering her TV mother, "She was 'a great broad,' as they said in the vernacular of her day, a wonderful actress and a lovely woman. I will miss her fire, her courage and her irreverence."

All three of Bergen's marriages ended in divorce. She was previously married to actor Jerome Courtland, agent Freddie Fields and entrepreneur Jeff Endervelt.

She is survived by her daughter P.K. Fields and son Peter Fields, her adopted children, stepdaughter Kathy Fields Lander and three grandchildren.